


Face The Dawn

by BrittaKirk



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 02:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrittaKirk/pseuds/BrittaKirk
Summary: She left him. He couldn’t protect her.





	Face The Dawn

Ivy, focus...”

The memory pushed through the surface of the whole murky creek of her. Joshua Faraday’s words whispering along her skin, slow, full of the melodious south and too much to drink when he taught her to fight one night. They were young and for all the perils of their wild, a smattering of constellations still lingered in their eyes. His hands comfortably hovering over his guns, his lady and his whore, seeking solace in dregs of whisky, keeping childlike in the tales of foxes and card tricks and magic. Back then, Ivy’s solace was the promise of unraveling him thread by thread.

“...you’ve gotta be quick.”

His large hand grazed her stomach, comforting and warm. His voice held a smirk as his nose brushed her ear, his lips moved against the nape of her neck as he lilted husky instructions. When his fingers brushed against her waist, Ivy giggled, missing her target entirely.

“Looks like you’ve just lost your gunfight, Ms. Ivy,” Faraday said, pleasure in his voice.

Ivy grinned, elbowing him in his stomach, “For good reason, Faraday. You know there’s no stronger rival ‘round these hills than me.”

He grunted, rubbing his stomach, eying Ivy curiously as she turned to face him.

“Why are we doing this anyway? You know I never much appreciated the sight of you with a gun in your hand, darlin’.”

Ivy cleared her throat, “Well, with your sensibilities taking you wherever you hear howling over the mountains, it’s best I know something of how to take care of myself....And I wager you liked the sight of Hilly with a pistol in her hands.”

He frowned, “What are you talking about, Ivy?”

“We both know you’re not the settling kind, Faraday.”

“Nonsense, I’ve been here for...a while.”

“A month and a few days if that. I’m feeling it’s ‘bout that time you start itching for somethin’ new.”

A secret smile appeared on his face as he stalked over to her, “You countin’?”

Ivy glanced up at him for a moment, a soft look on her face, before cocking her pistol, aiming at the scarecrow a few feet ahead, and pulling the trigger. Smoke curled from the mouth of her pistol after the bullet pierced the scarecrow’s straw heart. Pleased with her work, Ivy kneeled to retrieve her carpet bag and banjo from the dirt path.

“I got you somethin’.”

Ivy’s mouth curved, “I don’t wanna see a magic trick, Faraday.”

“Ivy, I’m offended. You’ll get a real hoot out of this one...pick a card.”

Ivy’s head rolled back on her shoulders, “How many years are we gonna do this? You never get my card.”

He looked down at his deck, shuffling them haphazardly. Ivy cocked her head in observance of his tense shoulders, the uncommon tinge of blush along his cheeks.

“I always get One Eyed Jacks’ card.”

“Guess I’m not as exciting to you as a one eyed jack,” Ivy smirked, making to walk around him.

His hand shot out to grasp hers, “Please? I’m your oldest associate, surely you can grant me a moment of your time.”

Ivy grazed his thumb before taking the deck of cards out of his hand, and slipping one out of its soft worn middle.

Two of clubs.

“Commit it to memory, and slip it back into the deck.”

Ivy sighed theatrically before sliding it back into the deck, watching his fingers play those cards like his own fiddle or a woman he bed last night.

She gulped at the tangled turn of her thoughts.

Finally, he pulled a card from the bottom of the deck, “ A la your card!”

“Reckon’ not, no,” Ivy smiled.

“No? Okay,” he pulls another, “Your card!”

Ivy shook her head slowly.

He pulled another, “This one has to be your card!”

Ivy burst out laughing, and whatever smart retort he seemed to have for her faded into the evening breeze. He stared back at her with such a look as she had never seen trained on her before.

“All right,” he said huskily. “ One. Last. Try. Take my hand, please.”

Ivy complied. The feeling of his index finger grazing the center of her palm made her close her eyes and pocket the feeling of his fingers on her. His hand closed over hers, and when he let go, he left a card and a necklace.

The Queen of Hearts.

Ivy raised the delicate chain to the moonlight. It was an old brass locket, small and oval with a slip of embroidered blush colored wild flowers affixed to the top.

“Oh Joshua...”

He smiled out at the pasture land around them, “I got to thinkin’ that the next time I set out, it’d be nice to have some company.”

Ivy looked down at the locket now tucked in her fist, before settling on him, “Where’s all this comin’ from?”

He bent low to look her directly in the eyes, “Well, you’re certainly better company than all the One Eyed Jacks that come my way, don’t you think?”

“Joshua...well I should certainly hope so, I --“

He looked away from her, “Have you caught the eye of any of the gents ‘round here while I was gone?”

“There is one---“

“We’ve been our only companions since we were children. I reckon we could trail up that mountain up yonder, just keep on going, Ivy.”

Ivy’s heart pounded in her chest, her stature erect as she stepped closer to him. “Well that’s mighty convienient of you, to make a proposition on the heels of another man. That put the fire under your ass, Faraday, to know somone else might want me?”

“Do I need to introduce someone to Ethel and Maria, ‘Cause I have no problem doing so---“ His voice carried the same light tone, but his hands now wrapped around her forearms tightened in warning.

“I need you to be absolutely clear in what you’re askin’ me, that’ll help me to decide whether or not Cyrus’ offer’s still an option,” she said, keeping her eyes sternly focused on his chest.

His hands drifted to her waist and pulled her closer, “Remember our fires in the mountains? All those stars glitterin’ up there, all stubborn like you get when I try to boss you? All the hell we used to raise ‘round noon time? When we had all these high plans since we were children? I still want all those things, only now they’ll all end with you soft and warm under moonlight calling my name when I love you...I’m only Joshua with you, Darlin’. And you won’t need to keep learning to shoot because I’ll take care of it. I’ll keep you safe, and I’ll need you at night when the ghosts come.”

That last was muttered so quietly she questioned it.

“The nightmares never go away, darlin’, and I’d do anything to keep you from knowing that. Remembering your night songs have been the only thing to bring me back, and these curls” A soft smiled formed as he gazed down at her, and raised his hand to tug playfully at one of her curls. “I need you to trust me again.”

Ivy rubbed the spot over his heart thumping erratically, and betraying the usually smooth Faraday he sauntered with.

“You want to be my Joshua, and you want us to chase the stars in the mountains, and fish, and make love under moonlight, and keep each other safe,” Ivy mused.

“Your card was Two of clubs,” he smirked.

For a moment, it was as if all that life had of made him, a fox outsmarting the world, fell away. He looked like the boy she met in the woods when she had a hard time hunting that nights meal, and he had already made his fire, keeping warm, doing what ever magic he could to make her crack a smile. Two orphaned fools.

Ivy’s lips trembled as she slid her hand around the nape of his neck, pulled him closer, and kissed his forehead like she used to during the worst of his nightmares.

His fingers contracted around her shoulders, he whispered her name, and proceeded to kiss away all hesitance caused by time apart.

_____________

Pushing the memory deep deep down into the far depths of her, Ivy fired at the copse of willows in front of her, their leaves hanging limp in the humid night air. X marked her target with each bit of steel.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

The months between she and Faraday.

Bogue would arrive with his band of demons any day now, and the nagging pain roving up her back as she moved...the hollow in the pit of her stomach made it impossible for her not to pick up her gun and give him a proper welcome to Rose Creek.

Ivy didn’t give a damn what Faraday thought of the matter.

She left him.

He couldn’t protect her.

To Be Continued

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! I really hope you enjoyed reading it. I’ve been a Chris Pratt fan for a while now, and there’s just something about Faraday that I have a soft spot for. Since I didn’t see very many Faraday/OC ships in the fandom, I thought I’d make one with all of the hurt/comfort and angst goodness I could stomach! 
> 
> This might be a bit on the heavy side as I wanted to write a heroine who endured a great deal and who had actual stakes in this war with Bogue. I have written a bit more of this story, in hopes that it may become a full length story, but we shall see!
> 
> Hold Me (Alternate Version) by The Sweeplings inspired the title of this story, and I listened to a lot of First Aid Kit, one being The Song: “In The Morning” really takes me there! When there is any mention of Ivy singing in this story, her voice was inspired by these kinds of songs.


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